Images are a ubiquitous on Internet sites and applications such as social media, ecommerce, and the like. Indeed, images are the raison d'etre of many sites, such as PINTEREST, GOOGLE IMAGES, and the like. With the advent and widespread use of modern cellular telephones, much of the population walks around with a high-resolution, color, digital camera at the ready, resulting in a staggering proliferation of images, many of which are shared to social media and other sites.
While the sheer number of images online continues to explode, the use of images online has not changed much since the earliest days of the World Wide Web. That is, images may be viewed by a user through a browser, or may be statically linked, such as via a markup language, to e.g. a web site, a media file, or the like.
Many ecommerce sites and social media platforms limit communications between users, and/or impose limits on the size of files (images or otherwise) which may be shared. For example, the auction site EBAY hides contact information between sellers and buyers until a sale is complete. EBAY will even disallow the use of images by sellers that have “watermarks,” or text information overlaid on the image, such as the seller's email address or other contact information. This prevents the buyer from contacting the seller and arranging a “side deal,” avoiding the commission EBAY charges on the sale. Similarly, many dating sites will allow users to browse images and provide limited information about the potential match, but withhold actual identification and contact information until both parties agree to a “match,” when the site collects a fee. As another example, FACEBOOK limits the size of media files users can post to their “wall,” preventing, e.g., a musical band from posting a digital sound recording.
The use of an image is central to activity on many of these sites which include restrictions on communication. An image is central to fomenting buyer/user interest in the auction and dating site examples. In the FACEBOOK example, a band may wish to link a digital music file to an image of album cover art, to promote the album.
The Background section of this document is provided to place embodiments of the present invention in technological and operational context, to assist those of skill in the art in understanding their scope and utility. Approaches descried in the Background section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Unless explicitly identified as such, no statement herein is admitted to be prior art merely by its inclusion in the Background section.